As frantic as harvest is, it’s the first chance to reflect on the growing season with some hard evidence from the yield monitor.
Until that moment, everything is yield potential and decisions made are speculative.
Was there a payoff for that extra mouse bait, herbicide spray or urea pass? Was there frost or root disease damage? How bad was that marshmallow patch? Should I have spent my time chasing grain quality or prime lambs?
These questions will start arising as we get closer to harvest but the answers can only be nutted out once the yield and quality results are in.
Managing variability from one season to the next is nothing new for dryland farmers and BCG’s premier event, the Trials Review Day is a prime opportunity to help answer those questions, year in year out.
Like 2016, this season could return some excellent production figures and some growers might be in the rare position to ask: did I apply enough?
Early results from 2017 BCG trials are showing early responses to high rates of fertiliser, as it did last year, challenging the conventional wisdom to manage inputs for cost recovery and instead ‘go for production’.
At a low phosphorus (P) paddock, PIRSA-SARDI researcher Kenton Porker said at the Compass barley trial at the Main Field Day in September 2017, that early assessments revealed a statistically significant response to different P rates.
Measured by the greenness and growth with Normalised Difference Vegetation Index technology (NDVI), readings taken 35, 47 and 60 days after sowing showed a statistically significant response to phosphorous fertiliser with rates of 0, 3, 6, 9 and 12 kg/ha of P.
“The relationship in these responses are nearly linear,” Mr Porker said. “Coming off big crops last year, this poses the question: was there enough P put out to achieve a high yield potential?” he added.
But will this convert to yield?
Agriculture Victoria’s Research Soils Scientist, Katherine Dunsford says research in the Wimmera
and Mallee suggest responses to P fertiliser tend to be strongest during early growth and tillering. “But as the plant transitions into the reproductive phase, and the stem starts to elongate we see a reduction in response to P,” she said.
“This year, we are seeing some interesting vegetative responses so far.”
So to get answers to these production questions and more, mark the BCG Trials Review Day, Friday, February 16, in your calendar.
And have a great harvest.
BCG Trials Review Day is a Members only event. To attend this event and get your 200+ page copy of the 2016 Season Research Results join us prior to, or on the day. Contact the BCG office for more details.
This article was published in the Stock and Land, 2 November.
